


A Spy in the Snow

by SuperDaja



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hydra (Marvel), Past Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 00:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7867084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperDaja/pseuds/SuperDaja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Steve, Natasha and Clint raid a Hydra base in the middle of the Canadian forest, they come across someone they hadn't expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is written from Steve's point of view, the second from Brock's. They can be read in any order.

The quinjet touched down softly on a snow-covered clearing in a dense pine forest. Its three occupants scanned the monitoring equipment for any suspicious activity. "Nothing", came Clint's voice over the comms.

"Then let's go."

The ramp lowered and the three Avengers made their way towards the coordinates of the Hydra base. They moved almost inaudibly over the snow, their visibility slightly hindered by the misty weather and the approaching dusk.

"I see someone up ahead", Hawkeye, who went up front, whispered.

Steve quietly asked back: "Hydra uniform?"

"Yep."

"Then take the shot."

Hawkeye noiselessly took an arrow from his quiver, drew his bow, released the shaft - and watched incredulously as the figure stumbled and fell, causing the arrow to fly overhead and imbed itself in a tree with an audible thump. The unknown person must have heard it, because they quickly rolled behind the nearest pine. Clint tried to track them with the next arrow already on the string and murmured in his comm device: "Missed the shot, repeat, missed the shot."

Before Natasha could mock him for this, a raspy male voice called: "Hawkeye? That you?"

Clint stayed silent.

"I'll turn myself in if it's you."

"Answer him. Natasha, you circle round and secure him once he's given up his weapons", Steve instructed after a brief surprised pause.

"Throw your weapons where I can see them, then slowly come out with your hands behind your head."

A small rifle landed in the snow a good four meters from where the person was hiding, followed by a wicked-looking knife. Then the unknown man slowly stepped around the tree and raised his hands behind his head. He was wearing the standard Hydra uniform pants and jacket, combined with a black ski mask that completely obscured his face.

"Come forward, slowly."

He did as he was told - until a flash of red and black tackled him from the side, swept his feet from under him and wrenched his hands behind his back. Natasha let a pair of extra-tight handcuffs snap shut on the groaning man's wrists. (They were one of Tony's newest inventions. He'd been irritated by "all those crazy super-spy-villains dislocating their thumbs and running around my place when they should be sitting in their nice cozy cells".) Clint kept his arrow trained on the man as he, too, left his cover and slowly came closer. Steve was approaching from the other side, his shield held ready in case the guy should try something. Without any further ado, Natasha grabbed the man's shoulder to pull him to his knees, then in one smooth motion ripped off his mask and stepped back.

Steve hissed in surprise. "Rumlow?" But the former Strike commander didn't answer. Instead, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he sagged sideways. 

Natasha let him fall to the snow, two small pistols trained on him, her fingers on the trigger. "Please tell me I can shoot him."

"I don't think he's faking", Clint remarked. Coming from him, that assessment meant something.

"I didn't hit him _that_ hard", Black Widow defended herself, her eyebrows drawn together suspiciously.

Steve stared at the fallen Strike commander, then at his friends. He sighed. "Much as I'd like to get rid of him, he _did_ surrender. And I'm not in the habit of killing prisoners. Let's check him for hidden surprises and get him back to the quinjet."

They didn't find any more weapons, explosives or obvious tracking or monitoring equipment, so Steve threw Rumlow over his shoulder and jogged back to the quinjet while the other two slowly crept closer to the Hydra base.

The quinjet wasn't very large, so neither was the containment area. It was more of a cage, really, a section of roughly two square meters with a narrow cot and just enough space to stand in front of it, surrounded by extra-sturdy metal bars. Steve let his prisoner drop on the cot, locked the door and took off again. This detour had cost valuable time and he had to hurry if he wanted to reach the base before the predicted arrival of the supply trucks.

After one of Natasha's informants had told the Avengers about a possible Hydra base in the border region between British Columbia, the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories, Tony had sicked Jarvis on the satellite surveillance images of the area. It hadn't taken the AI very long to identify four possible locations, which had then been further monitored by small drones Tony had hidden in inconspicuous places on the access routes to the properties. The team hadn't judged this to be a top priority threat because the base was supposed to be relatively small. Over the course of two months, Jarvis had detected more traffic to the location the three Avengers were visiting now than the official cover story justified. Among the movements, there had been what was interpreted as pairs of supply trucks every two weeks, always just under cover of darkness. Which would be in fifteen to twenty minutes, if Hydra hadn't suddenly changed their habits.

Steve was just closing the quinjet's ramp back up when Clint's voice came over the comms: "We ran into three Hydra thugs. I shot them before they noticed me, so they couldn't tell mommy and daddy about us. We took their comm devices, so far nobody tried to contact them. What's your status?"

"On my way."

Seven minutes later, Steve passed a group of three corpses, all of them pierced by arrows. Another five minutes later, Steve made it to within shouting distance of the Hydra base, a large concrete block at the end of a gravel path surrounded by nothing but trees. As they had planned with the help of Tony's monitoring equipment, Clint and Natasha were perched on a rock formation a few hundred meters further down the road.

As they were waiting, Steve's thoughts turned to their prisoner. What was Brock Rumlow doing out in the forest? Knowing his skills and his former position at S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve assumed that Rumlow had to be pretty high up Hydra's hierarchy as well. Not someone you put on perimeter duty. And what about the three soldiers Clint had shot? Had they been sent on the same mission as Rumlow? Was there something important in the general vicinity of the quinjet? Maybe they'd be able to find some clues when they were searching the base.

Finally, Steve's sensitive ears picked up the distant sound of a motor. However, instead of the two trucks they expected, there was only one vehicle coming up the road. _Even better, less chance of being spotted by someone checking the rear-view mirror._ As silently as they could manage, the trio jumped from the rocks onto the top of the truck, then climbed down the back and lodged themselves underneath it. It was an extremely uncomfortable position, but no one ever checks thoroughly underneath the car. They didn't have to hold on for long until the truck reached the Hydra complex. It stopped and they could see the feet of at least four people coming out of the guard house and walking around the truck. Someone knocked in a complicated rhythm on the back of the truck, then opened the door.

"Hail Hydra!"

"Hail Hydra. Anything unusual?"

"Nothing."

Well, it was good they had decided against just climbing in the back. Steve looked at the tight faces of his two comrades, knowing that their arms must be hurting like hell by now. Just as well that he was partnered with two of the best assassins in the world, otherwise this would not have worked.

Finally, they heard a large metal gate moving and the truck started again. The three waited until the vehicle was parked in a freight elevator before dropping silently to the floor. From here, they would separate - Natasha would clean up the truck, go back upstairs to take control of the gate and make sure no nasty surprises awaited them if they had to make a quick getaway. Clint and Steve, on the other hand, were going to check out the labs and take any relevant information with them before rigging the place to blow.

As far as plans went, it was pretty straightforward. It even worked quite well, which was seldom enough in their business to be appreciated, with the small exception that the labs were almost empty. "Looks like the rats were leaving the ship before we even turned up", Clint remarked.

Steve nodded. "There's also a lot less soldiers than I would have expected."

"Maybe that's why there was only one supply truck", Natasha added over the comms. "It's only half full, too. But they brought quite a few empty boxes and a lot of packaging material, probably to pack up whatever equipment's still left."

"Do you think someone tipped them off?"

"I don't see how. We didn't know about this base until two months ago, and we didn't even tell S.H.I.E.L.D. we'd be here. Unless you want to suggest someone hacked Jarvis..."

No, Steve did not want to suggest that. There was still a computer left in an observation room next to a one-way mirror that looked into some kind of bastard child between an operating theater and a torture chamber. Clint plugged in a USB-stick that would download everything it could find while Steve went into the neighboring room and stuffed some small plastic tubes from a metal fridge into his belt pocket.

As soon as Hawkeye told him that the download was complete, Steve said: "Ok, we're done here. Natasha, we're coming back up."

"Roger that."

Steve would swear she used this phrase just to have him on.

Of _course_ things couldn't stay as easy as that, they encountered resistance on the way back to the elevator and had to fight their way through more than a dozen Hydra goons. As they saw Natasha again, her hair was mussed and her gaze slightly wild, and Clint was sporting a few cuts on his arms and fingers and a bruise forming around his left eye. "You should see the other guy", was his only comment to Natasha's raised eyebrow.

She had gotten the gate open and killed all the soldiers outside in the meantime, so they could jump in the small Jeep she had liberated from the dead guards and disappear into the forest. Clint got to pull the detonator that made the base blow up, so that was that.

When the trees got too thick and the car was stuck, the three got out and continued on foot. They were quite sure that nobody was following them, but that was still no reason to dawdle. Who knew if Hydra had any kind of air support close by?

"Do you think Rumlow's stolen the bird by now?", Clint asked dryly.

Natasha smirked. "I hope so. That would mean I'd finally be allowed to kill him."

"Sorry to disappoint, but it doesn't look like it." Steve pointed ahead to where the quinjet was just becoming visible through the mist. He shared the other two's mistrust, however, so he got his shield ready and sprinted the rest of the way. Clint and Natasha were still a ways behind him as he hit the release on the ramp, standing a little to the side in case Rumlow would await him with gunfire or something equally unpleasant.

He didn't.

Instead, Steve could see the former Strike commander lying where he'd left him, so he quickly made his way inside and checked the door. It hadn't been tampered with. Suspicious, Steve let his eyes roam over his prisoner, to see if he'd maybe managed to loosen the handcuffs. It didn't look like it. This was... weird. While they'd been working together, Steve had always been under the impression that Rumlow was a hardass who didn't give up easily. Granted, he hadn't expected him to turn out to be Hydra, so maybe he'd been wrong with other assessments, too.

Behind him, Steve heard Clint and Natasha come up the ramp. They obviously assumed that he was handling the Rumlow situation, because they directly went on to the cockpit. Deciding that leaving as quickly as possible was a good idea, Steve hit the button to close the ramp and then strapped in opposite the cage. As the quinjet took off, he studied his prisoner again. In the bright artificial light, Rumlow was white as a sheet. He looked as if he'd had a rough few days, with skin stretched tight over his cheekbones and dark circles beneath his slightly glassy eyes. The damp uniform stuck to him weirdly, almost as if it was too big. And - had he honestly taken off his shoes? Steve's eyes moved from the boots on the floor in front of the cot back up to Rumlow, only to find that his feet were hidden underneath a blanket. A rather clumsily unfolded blanket, actually. _No surprise there. He's handcuffed, isn't he?_ Now that he was looking for it, Steve could see that Rumlow was shaking. Was he playing possum to lull them into a false sense of security? 

"If you don't want me to freeze here, you gonna have to open those cuffs. Or put the blanket over me", Rumlow slurred suddenly. 

_As I thought. Playing possum._ "That's not gonna happen", Steve said decisively.

Rumlow slowly blinked up at him. His eyes kept drifting away, seemingly unable to focus on his former comrade-in-arms. He'd always been a good actor - must have been, for nobody to guess that he'd been Hydra all along.

"Have to talk... to Fury."

At first, Steve thought he had misunderstood the softly spoken words. Then he laughed. "Right. Shall we shoot you or throw you out of the plane? Though I gotta warn you: I don't think you'll end up in heaven, and while Fury could be a right bastard, I'm sure he didn't go to hell."

The corner of Rumlow's mouth twitched slightly, before he quietly rasped: "Know he's no' dead."

"Yeah, right. And I'm the pope."

"Was'n the Trisk'lio... helped Rom'nff... 'copter..." Rumlow's words got more and more slurred. "Have... 'nformation..." The former Strike commander's eyes fluttered closed.

Steve stared at him suspiciously, but Rumlow really seemed to be out cold. Steve sighed, then straightened up and went into the cockpit.

"Did you listen to that?"

Clint nodded towards the small monitor that showed the surveillance camera overlooking the containment area. "Yep. He sure does have some inside info."

"Rumlow was Level 8, just like us. But I don't know how high up in Hydra he was - maybe Pierce or someone else told him about the security measures needed for releasing all those files. He could have guessed who the second Alpha Level member was", Natasha speculated.

"And the helicopter?"

"I'm sure some of the Hydra agents saw the heli, we weren't exactly inconspicuous when we picked up Wilson. Again, he could just be making an educated guess."

Steve still looked unhappy. "If he's willing to give up information, we should at least try to get that from him before we hand him over to whatever government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to appease at the moment."

"Not arguing with you there, Cap", Natasha shrugged. "Just saying that he doesn't necessarily know about Fury yet, so we shouldn't just put the two on the phone."

"But we could ask Fury what he thinks about it", Clint suggested. The other two looked at him. "What? I'm not allowed to be the reasonable one?"

So Steve left a voice message at one of the numbers Fury had given them: "Fury, it's Captain Rogers. We captured Brock Rumlow at a Hydra base in the Northwestern Territories, near the border to British Columbia. He wants to talk to you, but we insisted that you're dead. What do you want us to do with him?"

They were still in the air when the systems showed an incoming call. "It's Fury", Clint said with a raised eyebrow as he accepted the call.

There was some static crackle, then: "Put him on the phone."

"Hello to you, too, Fury", Steve said sarcastically. "Rumlow's unconscious."

"What did you do to him?"

"Nothing. We met him in the forest outside the base and he surrendered immediately. Seemed a bit suspicious to us, so we put him in containment."

Fury sighed. "I'm coming over to meet you at Stark Tower. Does anybody else know you've got him? Our side, or Hydra?"

"We didn't tell anyone but you, and nobody at the Hydra base found out, either."

"Good. Try to keep it that way. And Agent Romanoff: don't kill him."

Natasha made a not very believable "what, me?" face as the call ended.

It wasn't much longer until New York came into view. Clint expertly landed the quinjet in the bay Jarvis had opened for them in one of the top floors of the tower, then powered down the engines and opened the hatch. As Fury had requested, they hadn't informed Hill of their guest, nor Tony, who was in Malibu at the moment. Instead, Steve went ahead to prepare one of the holding cells and left the former Strike Team Delta to take care of their prisoner.

Clint unlocked the door and carefully went inside while Natasha watched like a hawk, her Widow's Bites ready. Rumlow didn't give any indication that the landing had woken him. Clint gripped his arm and commanded: "We're here. Get up!" Rumlow slowly blinked awake, a stark contrast to the swift transition from deep sleep to instant wakefulness that both Clint and Natasha knew he was capable of. The Black Widow frowned. Nevertheless, Clint pulled on Rumlow's arm and the older man let himself be pulled to his feet without resistance. The two of them exited the quinjet and stepped into the hangar, Natasha at their back. Barefooted and in a rumpled, wet and baggy uniform, Rumlow looked decidedly less imposing then when Natasha had last seen him. 

After a short walk and an even shorter elevator ride, the small group arrived at the holding cell Steve had prepared for them. The high-tech, transparency-changing, bulletproof door was standing open and some fresh clothes were lying on the bed. Clint lead Rumlow inside, then Natasha produced the keys for his handcuffs and opened them, before they both quickly stepped back out and closed the door. As part of Tony's upgraded security measures, it would take both Jarvis opening an electronic lock and an actual old-fashioned key currently in Steve's possession to open the door again.

When Steve came back to the cell with a tray of water and some food, Rumlow was sitting on the bed, wearing the new clothes and gingerly rubbing the feeling back into his hands. "So what now?", he asked as Steve pushed the tray through a flap in the wall.

Captain America didn't answer.

 

The three Avengers reconvened in the common room after they'd all showered and gotten changed. There was always food from Stark Industry's canteen in the fridge, healthy but filling stuff for people who burned lots of calories. It was just after midnight and none of them had had more than a granola bar on the flight, so they set down at the large table to eat.

"I dropped off the chemicals at the lab, the scientist on night duty told me they'd have some results in the morning", Steve offered between bites.

"I sent the files to Stark." At the other's surprised glances, Clint shrugged. "Fury didn't tell us to keep the raid secret, only who we picked up. Besides, it's not like Stark didn't know we were interested in the place."

"Fair enough", Steve conceded. After some thoughtful chewing, he said: "Does anybody else think it's weird that all the labs were almost empty?"

Natasha nodded. "I'll bet you ten bucks they were planning to give up the base. The only question is: was it because of us, or because of something else?"

"Maybe they were done with their experiments", Clint suggested.

"But establishing a base is expensive. Wouldn't they have found a way to repurpose it?", Natasha asked.

"Unless they had reason to believe there was a high chance of being discovered. Then I would finish whatever I'm there to do, and then clean it all out."

Steve nodded. "You might be right. Of course, we could just ask the Hydra agent one floor down."

"I'd suggest we wait for Fury. He seems to have plans for Rumlow", Natasha said.

Steve huffed. "Yeah, and we all know that Fury's always honest with us."

"I agree with Nat", Clint mumbled around his food. "If only because it means I can get some sleep now instead of having to deal with that traitorous bastard."

Steve gave in and they all went off to bed. It was a short night; at half past five, Jarvis woke them all up to announce that Director Fury had just entered the building. He was waiting for them in the common room when they arrived there just a few minutes later.

"Morning. So, I hear you were busy last night? Tell me about it."

They did, sharing a coffee with their former Director. Fury listened attentively, then drawled: "They were already cleaning out, were they? I have an idea why that might be the case... Let's go and talk to your prisoner."

So they all got into the elevator and rode one floor down to where the cells were situated. As they rounded the corner, they saw that Rumlow was awake and sitting on the bed. He looked much better than the previous evening, and when he recognized Fury, there might have even been something like relief on his face.

Fury looked impassively at the man in the cell. "Rumlow."

"Director Fury."

_Wait, what? Director Fury? Why is he so respectful? Does he..._ Steve's thoughts came to an abrupt stop as Rumlow added: "My cover's blown."

"Completely?"

"Yeah. Don't know how, but Hydra intercepted your last message. Arrested me an hour later. Spent the next few months as their lab rat before I managed to get out."

Steve was sure that he'd heard wrong. _Cover? Fury's last message?_ With raised eyebrows, Steve started to ask: "Did he just say..."

But Fury ignored him completely. "Did you tell them anything?"

"Of course not." There was a small bitter smile on Rumlow's face. Steve couldn't believe what was going on here. It sounded like Rumlow had been undercover at Hydra - undercover at Fury's orders. But the former Strike commander had been integral for the launch of Project Insight, he'd been responsible for God knew how many deaths. Not to forget that he'd attacked Steve in an elevator, chased him and Natasha through a shopping center and almost killed Sam Wilson before being knocked down by a Helicarrier.

Fury didn't seem the least bit fazed by all this. "What did they use on you?"

"Well, they didn't exactly tell me", Rumlow said sarcastically. "Lots of injections. First few days, they interrogated me - gave me stuff that seemed designed to lower inhibitions, hallucinogens, standard torture drugs. When they realized I wasn't gonna talk, they turned me into a guinea pig instead." His face became carefully neutral. "They tested their chemical weapons on me, knock-out gas, paralyzing poisons, injections that make you feel like you're on fire. The good stuff."

Steve had crossed his arms in front of his chest and was shaking his head. This sounded exactly like the Hydra he knew, it reminded him uncomfortably of rescuing Bucky from an exam table in Italy. In fact, this was probably the best story a Hydra agent could tell if they wanted to gain his sympathy and become a mole in the Avengers. He wasn't convinced yet.

There was a tiny rueful smile on Rumlow's face. "It might have ended at that point, I was too weak to break out. But then the head scientist decided to test the really new stuff on me, something that accelerates human healing. And lucky for me, it worked."

"Sorry that you had to go through all that."

What? Steve could count the number of times he'd heard Fury say the word "sorry" on the fingers of one hand. He could see Natasha lift an elegant eyebrow. So she thought this was strange, too.

Rumlow shrugged. "It's part of the job." But his voice wasn't as steady as he'd maybe wanted it to be. Or was that slight wobble part of his plan?

Fury rolled his eye at him. "Well, we'll need a full bloodwork. For your sake as well as ours. Jarvis, open the lock, please. Captain Rogers, the keys."

"Hell, no. First, you'll have to tell us what on earth is going on here." Steve wasn't going to set Rumlow free just like that, not without some very good proof that he really wasn't Hydra.

Fury sighed. "Rumlow's been working for me for the last six years."

"A triple agent? Really?", Clint asked sceptically. "How d'you wanna be sure he's not a quadruple agent?"

"Because when he came to me and told me about Hydra, I didn't have a clue they still existed. It would have been mightily stupid of Hydra to reveal themselves just to get an agent slightly closer to me than he already was."

"Then why didn't you know about Project Insight? And why did he get the Helicarriers into the air?", Natasha added coolly.

Fury nodded in Rumlow's direction. "You tell them."

The former Strike commander didn't look too happy about that, but he sighed with a resigned expression and explained: "I joined Hydra when I was young and stupid. They got me into S.H.I.E.L.D., I was good, got promoted quickly. When I was older and slightly less stupid, I realized that a lot of the stuff Hydra told me was utter bullshit and that I was actually doing more harm then good. So I went to Fury and confessed."

"I almost shot him", Fury drawled with a slight grin.

"Then he made me continue what I was doing. We planned to root out Hydra, but first we had to get as many names as possible. It would have been real embarrassing to plan a large-scale assault with a small but loyal team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, only to unknowingly include a Hydra mole. Unfortunately, Hydra compartmentalizes even more than S.H.I.E.L.D., so it took me a long time to find out who was Hydra and who was not. I didn't know Pierce was in, for example, but I did know about Sitwell."

Rumlow was using his mission-briefing voice, he seemed sincere. But that didn't have to mean anything with a professional spy. "Another thing I didn't know about was Project Insight. They told me about it after we came back from the Lemurian Star. But by then, Fury had already been attacked and it was all too late anyway. So all I could do was try to keep the damage at a minimum. Like ignoring the kissing couple on the escalator, or the fact that one member of the Strike team sent to mop up after the Asset suddenly had a different physique and was much quieter than usual."

This got Steve's attention. He _had_ been surprised at the time that Natasha's ruse had worked, but had not wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth. Similarly, it made sense that someone as competent as Steve had to admit Rumlow was would realize when a member of his team was replaced.

Natasha pursed her lips. "And what about the fight at the Triskelion, and the Helicarriers?"

"We still weren't sure who was Hydra, especially in the upper echelons of both the US government and the World Security Council. If the 'carriers hadn't gone in the air, someone might have prevented them from being destroyed, and Hydra could have gotten them back once we'd have gotten careless. So I had to make sure they were launched, no matter what the cost. But when I patrolled the Triskelion afterwards, I tried to go for hand-to-hand where I could, and nonlethal shots where I couldn't. And your buddy Wilson - did you honestly think I would go for a drag-out fist fight while one of the most important battles of my life is going on? I was just happy to have found a reason not to keep going, not to encounter any more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents I'd have to shoot, and I tried to make this fight last as long a I could without making the Hydra people in my ear suspicious. And look where that got me." Rumlow gestured to his face. When everyone just seemed confused, he shook his head. "Right, sorry. Enhanced healing, the burn scars disappeared some time around month three." 

Steve took a deep breath. What Rumlow was saying actually made a lot of sense, and it matched what they had seen at the Hydra base. That strange torture chamber / operating theater must have been where they administered the drugs. So the tubes Steve had recovered probably contained some of the concoctions, and the files Clint had sent to Tony might actually mention Rumlow by name. Combined with the fact that Fury was vouching for him... "Alright. I believe him. How about you?"

Clint and Natasha nodded reluctantly. Steve was sure that the Black Widow especially would keep a close eye on Rumlow no matter what happened today. He pulled out the keys and unlocked the door. "Well. I guess we'd better go down to the medical level, then."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brock's tired and hurting in this chapter, so... a lot of (internal) swearing.

Brock Rumlow numbly trudged through the snow. He couldn't feel his feet anymore, the stolen boots were too large and kept filling with snow. Maybe that was a mercy, because the rest of his body hurt like hell. Fuck. He was sure that he was going to die here. There was absolutely zero chance of finding a plane, or hell, even a car or motorcycle here in the middle of fucking Knowhere, Canada. From what he knew, there was exactly one road leading towards the base, and Hydra made sure to guard it tightly. He hadn't even managed to get a damn phone from the guard he killed and whose uniform and balaclava he was wearing. Because apparently, that was just his shit luck. At least the guy had had a comm device, which meant Brock had heard when they'd found his body and discovered Brock's escape. It had taken them a few minutes to realize that he'd taken the comm device, so he knew how many guards were out hunting for him now. That was a small comfort, especially since they had switched frequencies immediately after. Brock had instantly ditched the device at that point, not sure if it was equipped with same kind of tracker. Well, at least he'd been able to liberate a knife and a rifle with five shots left in it from the dead guard. Not that that'd help him when they found him, but at least he'd be able to take a few of them down with him.

The world was tilting in unexpected ways and suddenly snow-covered ground was rushing towards him. Again. Each time, the temptation to just stay down grew stronger. But like each time, he hauled his weary self to his feet and moved on. At the very least, he had to try. If he died here, it had all been for naught. The precious intel would die with him. And also...

He stumbled and fell. Again. But this time, he heard something whoosh over his head, and then the sound of something hard and fast embedding itself in wood. Two decades of training meant that he'd already rolled behind the nearest tree before his half-frozen brain even fully registered what had happened. Then his eyes fell on the arrow sticking from a tree trunk a good ten meters from him. 

Wild hope rushed through him like a burning flood.

Brock knew of exactly one assassin in the world that used bow and arrow on his missions. Clint Barton's track record was legendary, both with and without the infamous Black Widow at his side. Even after he'd been mind-controlled, almost brought down a Helicarrier and caused the death of dozens of agents, Fury had defended Barton in front of the World Security Councel. Hydra had never bothered trying to recruit him, setting him quite high up the "kill whenever possible" list instead. Apart from Captain America himself, there was probably no one on the planet of whom he could be more sure not to work for Hydra. So Brock made his abused throat force out: "Hawkeye? That you?"

When no answer came, he felt panic creeping up on him. _Get a grip. Barton's not stupid. He's not gonna give away his position just 'cause someone's shouting his name. Gotta give him some more incentive..._ "I'll turn myself in if it's you."

"Throw your weapons where I can see them, then slowly come out with your hands behind your head", came a few seconds later. That was definitely Barton's voice. Hoping that he hadn't misjudged the other agent (and he didn't think he had - Strike Team Alpha had done a few missions with Hawkeye), Brock threw the stolen rifle away from his current hiding spot, followed by the knife. Then he used the tree trunk to pull himself up and slowly stepped around it. The world was spinning again. Brock knew that in a situation like this, any sudden move could mean a bullet (or, more likely in this case, an arrow) to the heart, so he prayed to anyone who might be listening that he wouldn't faint now.

"Come forward, slowly."

Hawkeye was still invisible, but he could roughly tell which direction his voice was coming from. Brock started walking, held upright by sheer will, as his field of view started narrowing down. _Not yet. Please, not yet._

Suddenly, something tackled him from the side and he landed face-first in the snow. Instinct almost took over, but Brock forced himself not to defend himself. It wasn't hard - his body barely obeyed him anymore, and it was all over in less than a second, anyway. He felt something hard and painfully tight snap shut around his wrists, then he was dragged to his knees. The world was spinning faster. As he saw two blurry shapes move towards him, one in black, the other in blue, red and white, he felt the mask being ripped from his face. The world faded. Muted, as if through water, he heard an incredulous voice. "Rumlow?" Then he was gone.

 

When Brock woke up, his first thought was: _I'm not dead._ Closely followed by: _Ouch._ Wherever he was, it was marginally warmer than in the forest, and he was getting the feeling back in parts of his body. He was not sure if this was a good thing. Opening his eyes, Brock recognized his surroundings as the interior of a newest-generation quinjet, upgraded from what S.H.I.E.L.D. used to have. Probably by Tony Stark, if he'd had to guess. He was lying on his side on a narrow cot in some kind of cage. _Huh. Didn't have that before._ His hands were still cuffed behind his back, he was still wearing the wet Hydra uniform, and the world was still spinning. Fuck. He was hungry, and tired, and fucking cold. Not to mention, he _hurt_. 

It was quiet in the quinjet, the only thing Brock heard was the soft hum of the engines in stand-by mode for a quick getaway. And a quick, rhythmic clacking sound. He wondered where that was coming from. It took him an embarrassingly long time to figure out that what he heard was his own teeth chattering. Brock tried to make himself stop, but couldn't. 

There was a folded blanket at the foot end of the cot, underneath his knees. During training, they tell you that it's always important to wear some kind of footware during missions, it's better for running, kicking, climbing and all those other useful things. But right now, Brock's feet were freezing in the soaked-through boots, and there was also some rule about getting rid of wet clothes when in a cold place to avoid hypothermia, wasn't there? Right now, his brain was too mushy to care either way. He kicked off his boots and let them drop to the floor, then tried to somehow unfold the blanket using only his feet. Fucking handcuffs. Brock was usually quite agile, but his frozen limbs didn't really want to cooperate. He didn't even try to get out of the handcuffs, he could feel neither his arms nor his hands, and anyway, he'd surrendered himself to the Avengers, so trying to break out now would kind of defeat the point. Also, where should he even go? Trying to steal the quinjet in his momentary condition would probably end with him crashing it and dying in a giant ball of flame. He'd had enough of that at the Triskelion, thank you very much. God, he was so tired. He could feel tears of frustration starting to form. Fuck this. He was Brock Rumlow, former Strike commander and general badass, and he was not. Going to. Cry. Damn it. Brock closed his eyes, the blanket at least covering his feet and part of his legs, and allowed himself to pass out again.

 

The next time, Brock was woken by the sound of the lowering ramp. Now that he was awake, he could make out distant explosions as well. Blinking, he tried to get his surroundings into focus. Sleeping hadn't helped his condition much, and it couldn't have been very long anyway. The first thing Brock saw was Captain America running up the ramp with his shield still in hand. The Avenger quickly but cautiously approached his cage, checked the lock on the door and stared at his handcuffs with poorly hidden suspicion. Usually, Brock would have made a sarcastic comment at this point, but he was too tired to come up with something suitably witty. Also, the good Captain kept swimming in and out of focus, and Brock didn't quite know at which of the two faces he should direct any smartassed remarks. In the background, Hawkeye and Black Widow sprinted up the ramp and continued on to the cockpit. As they ran past him, Rogers turned away from the cage to hit the button to close the ramp, then strapped himself in across from Rumlow as the quinjet lifted off.

Brock tried to come up with a strategy. Should he reveal who he was truly working for and why he had been running from Hydra when the Avengers came across him? He had been deep, deep undercover for so long that simply talking about it with anybody but Fury felt completely wrong. But what alternative was there? He couldn't go back undercover anyway, Hydra knew his secret now. Also, he didn't think that anything besides the truth would get the Avengers to release him - and he didn't have any illusions about his chances at escaping the world's greatest heroes. God, if only his head would stop pounding so much, he might actually have a chance to think...

Brock's whole body was shaking. He was so fucking cold and tired. _Fuck this..._ "If you don't want me to freeze here, you gonna have to open those cuffs. Or put the blanket over me." His voice was oddly slurred.

"That's not gonna happen."

So much for the paragon of humanitarianism. Brock unconsciously hunched his shoulders to keep a little more warmth. He tried to look at Rogers, to maybe gauge his mood and whether or not he would be able to convince him of his side of the story, but his eyes kept drifting away and his vision was blurry again. Shit. He was so tired, all he wanted was to sleep for a month. _Yeah, that's not gonna happen_ , Brock's brain supplied helpfully. _Unless you convince him quickly that you're actually on his side._

"Have to talk... to Fury."

Captain America looked surprised for a split second, then he laughed. "Right. Shall we shoot you, or throw you out of the plane? Though I gotta warn you: I don't think you'll end up in heaven, and while Fury could be a right bastard, I'm sure he didn't go to hell."

Rumlow's mouth twitched. Yeah, Fury could be a bastard all right. But that wouldn't help him now. He had to convince Rogers to let him talk to Fury, that was the only way they would believe his claims that he really wasn't Hydra. So Brock forced a few more words out of his aching throat: "Know he's no' dead."

"Yeah, right. And I'm the pope."

"Was'n the Trisk'lio... helped Rom'nff... 'copter..." Brock was getting desperate. His thoughts were slipping away from him. What if the Avengers directly handed him over to some government agency? Hydra still had people in many places. He had to make sure they'd at least give him a chance to talk to them. "Have... 'nformation..." 

It was too much. His body just couldn't take it anymore. The former Strike commander's eyes fluttered closed.

 

"... here. Get up!" Brock had to fight his way back to consciousness. His limbs felt like they were made of lead, and so did his eyelids. There was a strong hand on his bicep, that alone should trigger his long-honed instincts into instant awareness. It didn't. He could finally make out Hawkeye's face above him, with the Black Widow standing a few feet back outside the cage. _Right, that's where I am._ Brock let himself be pulled to his feet, noting with relief that the world didn't immediately start to spin again.

They left the quinjet and entered some kind of hangar. Where had the Avengers taken them? He'd heard rumours about a secret base in New York State... A door opened automatically at their approach and they stepped into something that looked a lot more like a modern office building. When they stepped into the elevator and Barton said: "To the holding cells, please, Jarvis", Brock decided that they must be in Stark Tower. Well, at least the chances of Hydra snatching him back immediately were pretty low here. You could say what you wanted about Stark, his security was top notch. Brock should know, he'd worked on the infiltration scenario for Hydra.

They led him to a state-of-the-art cell, which Brock didn't care about half as much as about the fact that there were dry clothes on the bed. Romanoff unlocked his handcuffs (ow!), then they left him alone again. With hands that were still numb from the tight restraints and arms that barely wanted to move because they were so cold, Brock somehow managed to get changed. Thank God for warm socks. He had just finished when Rogers came with a tray of food and water. Unfortunately, the good Captain refused to tell him anything. Well, he'd just have to hope that the Avengers would indeed contact Fury. So Brock ate, drank, used the toilet in the corner of the cell, wrapped himself in the warm blanket (apparently, Stark's wealth meant that even the stuff he bought for his enemies was good quality) and went back to sleep.

 

It seemed like the food, water and warmth had restored some of Brock's usual vigilance, because he woke up as soon as the door at the end of the corridor opened. He quickly sat up to face the door.

"Rumlow."

Fury's face was as inscrutable as ever but Brock couldn't keep the relief completely off his face. "Director Fury."

Behind Fury, Brock could see Captain Rogers frowning at this respectful address. Barton and Romanoff were standing to the side, their faces carefully blank. It didn't surprise Brock that Fury hadn't asked to talk to him alone, even considering that what they were going to talk about had been kept secret from the Avengers up to now. They were in Stark Tower, after all, and every word spoken here was available to Tony Stark anyway, so they might as well bring the band along.

And Brock might as well let the cat out of the bag. "My cover's blown."

"Completely?"

"Yeah. Don't know how, but Hydra intercepted your last message. Arrested me an hour later. Spent the next few months as their lab rat before I managed to get out."

Incredulous faces. With raised eyebrows, Rogers started: "Did he just say..."

Fury rode right over him. "Did you tell them anything?"

"Of course not." Brock's bitter smile revealed that it hadn't been quite as easy as he made it sound, and Fury's grave face showed that he knew this.

"What did they use on you?"

"Well, they didn't exactly tell me", Brock said sarcastically. "Lots of injections. First few days, they interrogated me - gave me stuff that seemed designed to lower inhibitions, hallucinogens, standard torture drugs. When they realized I wasn't gonna talk, they turned me into a guinea pig instead." Brock knew that he'd have to relive those horrors soon enough for the official debrief, but now he could skip over the details. The Avengers didn't need to see him fall apart as he recapitulated months of pain and despair, of hoping for someone to come and break him out even while knowing that no one was missing him. He forced his expression to stay neutral as he said: "They tested their chemical weapons on me, knock-out gas, paralyzing poisons, stuff that makes you feel like you're on fire. The good stuff." With a rueful smile, Brock admitted: "It might have ended at that point, I was too weak to break out. But then the head scientist decided to test the really new stuff on me, something that accelerates human healing. And lucky for me, it worked."

Fury looked grim. "Sorry that you had to go through all that."

"It's part of the job", Brock tried to shrug it off. Secretly, he was glad that the Director appreciated what it had cost him to survive those four months of captivity. His body was already starting to put itself back together, now that he'd had a chance to eat, drink and sleep, but it would be a long time until he stopped having nightmares.

Fury rolled his one remaining eye at this display of hardass-ness, then said: "Well, we'll need a full bloodwork. For your sake as well as ours. Jarvis, open the lock, please. Captain Rogers, the keys."

"Hell, no. First, you'll have to tell us what on earth is going on here." Rogers glared at the Director, arms crossed defensively in front of his chest.

Fury sighed. "Rumlow's been working for me for the last six years."

"A triple agent? Really?", Hawkeye asked sceptically. "How d'you wanna be sure he's not a quadruple agent?"

"Because when he came to me and told me about Hydra, I didn't have a clue they still existed. It would have been mightily stupid of Hydra to reveal themselves just to get an agent slightly closer to me than he already was."

"Then why didn't you know about Project Insight? And why did he get the Helicarriers into the air?", the Widow added coolly.

Fury nodded in Rumlow's direction. "You tell them."

Brock sighed. Telling his lifestory to the Avengers wasn't very high on his to-do list, but he'd already guessed that this was going to happen. _Well then, here goes nothing..._

"I joined Hydra when I was young and stupid. They got me into S.H.I.E.L.D., I was good, got promoted quickly. When I was older and slightly less stupid, I realized that a lot of the stuff Hydra told me was utter bullshit and that I was actually doing more harm then good. So I went to Fury and confessed."

"I almost shot him", Fury drawled with a slight grin.

"Then he made me continue what I was doing. We planned to root out Hydra, but first we had to get as many names as possible. It would have been real embarrassing to plan a large-scale assault with a small but loyal team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, only to unknowingly include a Hydra mole. Unfortunately, Hydra compartmentalizes even more than S.H.I.E.L.D., so it took me a long time to find out who was Hydra and who was not. I didn't know Pierce was in, for example, but I did know about Sitwell."

Brock licked his lips. He hadn't talked so much in more than four months. "Another thing I didn't know about was Project Insight. They told me about it after we came back from the Lemurian Star. But by then, Fury had already been attacked and it was all too late anyway. So all I could do was try to keep the damage at a minimum. Like ignoring the kissing couple on the escalator, or the fact that one member of the Strike team sent to mop up after the Asset suddenly had a different physique and was much quieter than usual."

Romanoff pursed her lips. "And what about the fight at the Triskelion, and the Helicarriers?"

Brock grimaced. "We still weren't sure who was Hydra, especially in the upper echelons of both the US government and the World Security Council. If the 'carriers hadn't gone in the air, someone might have prevented them from being destroyed, and Hydra could have gotten them back once we'd have gotten careless. So I had to make sure they were launched, no matter what the cost. But when I patrolled the Triskelion afterwards, I tried to go for hand-to-hand where I could, and nonlethal shots where I couldn't. And your buddy Wilson - did you honestly think I would go for a drag-out fist fight while one of the most important battles of my life is going on? I was just happy to have found a reason not to keep going, not to encounter any more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents I'd have to shoot, and I tried to make this fight last as long a I could without making the Hydra people in my ear suspicious. And look where that got me." Brock gestured to his face. When the others only seemed confused, he shook his head. "Right, sorry. Enhanced healing, the burn scars disappeared some time around month three."

Brock could see the wheels turning behind the Captain's eyes. _Come on, believe me. The others will follow your lead._ Finally, Rogers took a deep breath and declared: "Alright. I believe him. How about you?"

As expected, Hawkeye and the Widow nodded reluctantly. Brock wasn't stupid enough to think they trusted him, but at least they would give him a chance to prove himself. This was much more than he'd allowed himself to hope for a mere 24 hours ago.

The Captain pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the cell. "Well. I guess we'd better go down to the medical level, then."


End file.
